Oh goodness. You know, that makes sense, but it hadnt occurred to me yet. I should've been tipped off by the fact that the online questions form half of the application was pages and pages of short answer questions, only like two of which were about athletic ability. They were almost dating questions.
It is a serious consolation that ANW is a sports competition and not a full bore reality tv show. The only downside is covering the cost of travel to Pittsburgh in the middle of this job I have this summer, assuming I get on, and taking the time off.
And lastly, I have to say, it means a lot to hear you say that I'm eminently castable (because I know it's about on screen persona that they think I could be capable of projecting, not just my athletic ability). It means a lot more coming from you than when my mom says I'm a shoe-in.
Yeah, moms are great but rarely objective.
I don't watch ANW - none of us watch shows that we don't work on, or have friends that work on and the friends that work on ANW aren't that close to me. If I understand it correctly, it's one of those things where they almost don't cover your life more than, say, ABC's wide world of sports would - you gotta get in pretty deep before they give a shit about you but right off the bat they've got a little blurb, right? That'll help. The fact that their ratings aren't dependent on your relationship with other contestants helps immensely.
The basic thing to look out for is this: they need to create a persona for you that will allow the audience to pigeonhole you within about 5 seconds. Once they've created it, they will remind the audience of it with every interaction. Much like color commentary of the NFL is all about the players' wives, schools and families so the football widows have something to connect to, any competition reality show will build you into a "person" so that they have a "human interest" handle on you. It is not necessary nor desired that this persona match you in any way. I mean, it's easier if they match but it takes a lot more care to make this happen but Kent & Arthur don't work that way.
Again, good luck.